“You were not the shooter, you were the first domino,” Bennett said. “Had you not gone back into that restaurant with your friends to start that fight, that grandfather would be alive today.”
On March 16, 2025, Jordan drove Antoine Ridge and another man to the restaurant on North Fry Road, and the group returned after spotting a rival clique and went inside intending to start a fight, according to prosecutors.
During the confrontation, Ridge pulled a Glock pistol fitted with a switch and fired 16 rounds into the crowded lobby. Jordan was struck by gunfire from the other side and ran to a nearby Waffle House. Arbaiza, a grandfather who was inside the McDonald’s buying Happy Meals for his family, was shot and killed in the exchange.
The federal case against Jordan centered on possession of the modified Glock, not on an allegation that he fired the fatal shots.
Investigators said Jordan at first lied repeatedly about who he was with and what happened. But after he consented to a search of his phone, detectives found a nine-second video recorded about five hours before the shooting that showed him holding the gun used in the attack. Prosecutors said Jordan later admitted the weapon belonged to Ridge and that he knew it had an illegal machine gun conversion device.
During Thursday’s hearing, Jordan’s defense attorney argued that he shouldn’t be punished as if he was convicted of participating in the shooting.
“This case is about a nine-second video that was taken hours before the incident,” Ryan Daniel Rones, Jordan’s federal public defender, said. “As difficult as it may seem, in light of the tragedy, this court should not and cannot use that as a basis to aggravate Mr. Jordan’s sentence in this case.”
But Bennett repeatedly focused on Jordan’s role as an instigator that set the altercation off. Jordan went inside the restaurant, left and then returned to start a fight, Bennett said. It was only after that that Ridge entered the McDonald’s and began firing the gun. Bennett called Jordan’s decision to take a video of himself holding the gun “unfortunate.”
“It was your client who walked back into McDonald’s and initiated the fight from which the gunfire occurred,” Bennett said. “That was the first domino in a series of events that led to that death.”
In a statement to the court, Jordan apologized and asked for leniency so that he might return to his family, including his three children.
Ridge was separately charged with murder in Arbaiza’s death and is awaiting trial in Harris County. Another man, Paul Whitley, was charged in state court with aggravated assault for allegedly shooting Jordan during the exchange.